Alice Coltrane – Lost Years in Ashram

Alice Coltrane, a great musical and spiritual force, is already a bit obscured and over-shadowed by her late and great husband, but she has 4 albums in particular that are almost unknown, even amongst her fringe-jazz fans.

There have been a few well-written blogs about the Alice Coltrane lost tapes (and 1 CD) done in Ashram, released through Avatar Book Institute.  By this point she had become a spiritual leader, as Swamini A.C. Turiyasangitananda.

For starters, I suggest maybe this blog for a bit more info.  Another well-written blog has some reviews of these 4 albums here.

These are a bit difficult to find.

However, it seems the record must be set straight, regarding just how these were released and how rare they are. It was reported these are (nearly) all cassette-only, or as I had understood before, Glorious Chants was the only one supposedly released to CD, according to some accounts.  On A.C.’s page at Avatar Books you can clearly see that Divine Songs and Infinite Chants are both available on CD — RIGHT NOW!  Even discogs has a total lack of correct information from these years. They only list 3 of the 4 albums at all, and they report that Glorious Chants was the only one with a CD release.

Unfortunately there is no sign of Glorious Chants or Turiya Sings on CD (or cassette), but you bet I will keep an eye out for them everywhere. I may not have the cash, but I will post links here for my complete lack of readership.

I am far too strapped for cash to buy both of these for the $15/ea+ possible shipping, but I hope that someone will make a serious investment in these rare albums and rip them to FLAC in EAC with proper settings — if you need an EAC guide, let me know!  Please share these if you get them.

In the meantime, without further preamble, here they are, the best copies that I have for these rare treats by Alice Coltrane in her most spiritual years, when she shied from the public (she did have her brief return to public performance and notice right before her death):
Alice Coltrane – Infinite Chants
Alice Coltrane – Turiya Sings
Alice Coltrane – Divine Songs
Alice Coltrane – Glorious Chants

I hope that eventually someone will be kind enough to help me get higher quality copies of all of these, but for now, enjoy these lost-to-obscurity albums in any condition you can.

up next: I am contemplating doing a bit on throat singing, but I don’t know that I have enough to share, and probably I have less to say, with all the ethno-musicologists out there that put my limited knowledge to shame.  There is some interesting ways it gets adopted, even outside of the east, but again, my resources are limited.  Perhaps this will go to a backburner.